As is known in the art, as of 2006, over 28% of electric energy consumption in the United States was attributed to“miscellaneous” electronic loads. As is also known, at that time, the percentage of electrical energy consumed in miscellaneous loads was growing at twice the rate of other loads.
Further, grid-connected loads can lose between 20-70% of their energy consumption during the conversion process. For example, power conversion alone accounted for as much as 4% of the total U.S. electricity consumption in 2006 and that figure is expected to increase.
Applications that require wide operating ranges are especially prone to high losses. Wide operation for the input or output voltage of a dc-dc converter may include a 4:1 range or wider. Wide operation for grid connected ac-dc conversion may include “universal input” (85-265 Vrms on the input) and may be required to operate when the instantaneous input voltage is between 50 V and 375 V. Grid-connected converters also cause losses in their respective power line through low power factor (generating lossy but unused harmonics on the line); this effect alone is estimated at some 2.8% of energy consumption in commercial buildings.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide power electronics having a high efficiency and power factor while also meeting market demands for power electronics having a smaller size and lower weight than current power electronics otherwise having substantially the same performance capabilities.